Wednesday, 19 April 2023 | PNS | DEHRADUN
The Dehradun police have arrested a man Pankaj Sharma for the murder of 78-year-old Manjit Kaur in Premnagar area at her house on April 12. The accused allegedly killed Kaur after she refused to lend him money.
The Dehradun senior superintendent of police Daleep Singh Kunwar said in a Press conference here on Tuesday that Kaur, was found murdered with her throat slit by a sharp weapon, inside her house in Premnagar area on April 12 around 6:55 PM. She was a retired class-four employee from the Forest Research Institute who used to live alone in her two-room house in which she didn’t have any valuables. He said that all the items inside the house were found intact in the preliminary probe which excluded the robbery angle. She had two daughters – Balwinder Kaur, who lives in Delhi and Inderpreet Kaur, who lives in Faridabad.
The incident came to light when Inderpreet called her over the phone as she usually would, but Kaur didn’t pick the call. When the neighbour reached Kaur’s home on her daughter’s request, he found her lying in a pool of blood with her throat slit, said Kunwar. Various teams were formed to investigate different anglers of the case. He said that the police compiled and analysed nearly 350 CCTV footage of the area which proved to be quite helpful in nabbing the alleged killer. He said that the team on Monday noticed a suspicious person going towards the house of the deceased in one of the footage and gathered information about him.
According to the SSP, the accused had taken a loan from a woman, who was persistently demanding her money back as she wanted to go to Vrindavan. Since he could not afford to pay her back, he went to Kaur on April 12 in the morning as both lived in the same area and asked her to loan money but she blatantly refused. “He claimed that he got drunk and returned to Kaur’s house around 6:30 PM the same day to ask for a loan again. When she refused, accused Pankaj slit her throat with a kitchen knife. He got anxious seeing the body so he drank a glass of water from her kitchen and went home,” said Kunwar. He said that the police arrested him from near Dussehra Ground and also recovered the glass and his blood soaked clothes hidden at his home.
